Australian Dolls Bears & Collectables Magazine Profile

After having 12 months of problems with my website I have decided to dump it and just have a blog, this blog. So bare with me while I slowly catch up with as much as I can. I'll start with an article that was done on me and my dolls in Australian Dolls Bears & Collectables Magazine a few months ago. The text is as follows.... Frankly, my dear, she does. By Rebecca King Wendy Frank cares. In fact, it is her compassionate nature that has made her a very happy doll maker. A Wendy Frank Doll is truly a one of a kind as Wendy is one of Australia’s most popular makers of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dolls. So passionate about her work, Wendy’s chief aim is to one day teach Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders the craft of making dolls which accurately represent them in the modern world. Everything about the craft of Wendy’s dolls harks to modern notions of sustainability and yet her dolls embrace century old ideas of recycling and reusing. Wendy makes her dolls based on the principle that everything around you can be used again, much like what was common practice at the time when the dolls that inspire her, were first created. She can clearly recall when she first became intrigued. “About six years ago we were wandering through the impressive Tyabb antique stores in Victoria. I was drawn to a small, early 1900s doll, deep in a glass cabinet. She was masterly handmade; a miniature lady of her day,” Wendy recalls fondly. Immediately Wendy imagined its long ago maker; “a loving mum, toiling over the doll at the end of a long hard day in front of the fire after the kids were tucked up in bed. She would use the best off cuts from old worn clothes, hair from someone’s last haircut, stuffing from sawdust which her husband had brought in from the shed, buttons recycled to attach the limbs to the body, the intricate and delicate crocheted lace for petticoats.” Wendy smiles because it is that Mum, which she has become and it is the master craftswoman to which she aspires. The 100-year-old doll did not become Wendy’s treasure, it did, however, give her a much greater gift. The lovely idea of it compelled Wendy to make her own dolls and naturally gave Wendy the means to tenderly toil and labour. By day, Wendy cared for her Mum who was grieving the loss of her husband and by night, lit by the white screen of her computer, Wendy scoured the internet and trawled through books to teach herself the craft of doll making. Wendy, ever grounded admits, “I didn’t think I’d be able to make them as brilliantly. Even children of that era made exquisite needlework. I have embroidery that my Grandmother did when she was nine and I’d never hope to stitch as beautifully.” Wendy can look back now and see how it is that she became craftswoman. “I was born in the late ‘50s to a Jack of all trades Dad and a Mum who was a talented seamstress and knitter. From them I learned a knack for recycling and reusing all things and the value of all things made from bits and pieces that were already available out of necessity,” she says. Her parents themselves learned the hard way, surviving the Depression, World War II, and a long, crippling drought. It really is no surprise then that her husband, Ash, is equally handy around the farm and their country home in Albury, NSW. “We can both turn our hands to just about anything, having designed and built our own home,” Wendy explains. Ash, like the husband who brings in the sawdust, is Wendy’s creative counter-part, a talented woodworker and very useful problem solver. Together, they have brought Wendy Frank Dolls to the world in the only way they knew how, through trial and error, a practical mindset and inventive resourcefulness. From her research, Wendy found she was most inspired by the dolls from the masters of mask faced cloth dolls, in particular those made by the hands of Madame Lenci and Kathe Kruse. After studying two books, Polly Judd’s ‘Cloth Dolls Identification and Price Guide 1920s and 1930s’ (1990) and Lydia Richter’s ‘Treasury of Kathe Kruse’ (1984), and taking three lessons form a doll maker in Victoria, Wendy began making and developing her own style of mask faced cloth dolls. She started by making 12” felt mask faced dolls in the Lenci tradition but then changed her technique to mirror that of Kathe Kruse’s style of a composition mask face, covered with fabric and then painted. With help from Ash, Wendy made her first face. “I found a little antique Aboriginal garden statue with just the right sized head. We took a cast, which I then modified to get a more detailed face. I also found a picture of a beautiful Aboriginal child in an Australian Geographic magazine, which I still use today to inspire me. After many a trial and error we made a face we were happy with. Ash figured out a way to take a negative of it so I could use it to make my masks with Sculptamould,” Wendy explains. Wendy pays a great deal of attention to her creations. “I paint my dolls with the highest quality acrylic paint and several layers are done and sanded between each to achieve a soft smooth complexion, without losing the texture of the material beneath.” Wendy goes on to explain how she makes and decorates the body. “I aim to design the bodies like those of the ‘masters’ I studied. I make my own patterns with shapely bodies and movable limbs attached by recycled buttons from old army uniforms.” Wendy hand stitches the toes and fingers as well as hand paints the fabric the dolls are dressed in, with Aboriginal-inspired designs. She stuffs the bodies with cleaned recycled cushions and uses factory abandoned leather off cuts to makes shoes. She finishes the dolls by adorning them with crystals, hand made jewellery, antique lace and embroidery. Wendy’s 14” African American dolls are also well sold off her eBay site. Otherwise known as Mammy dolls, they are popular in the U.S and inspire a modern generation of African American women who consider the dolls as a reminder of the endurance of the oppressed and abused, who suffered at the hands of slavery and racism. Sensitive to the ways in which African American women are represented Wendy contacted Debbie Behan Garrett, a popular American author and collector of African American Dolls. Wendy received an overwhelmingly positive response and was inspired to make them. However, it is her Aboriginal dolls which are the most sought after and of which she is most fond. “I want to portray a modern Aboriginal Australian who is proud of their heritage,” Wendy explains passionately and adds, “I always thought it was about time ethnic dolls looked like the real thing; not a white doll painted black, brown or yellow.” So proud of Wendy’s labour and passion, that the NSW government on behalf of the Doll Collectors Club of NSW sent a Wendy Frank Doll to the Perinic Collection in November 2010. The Perinic Doll collection in Croatia houses over 350 dolls which represent the culture and history of 120 countries from all five continents. Mr. Ljeposlav Perinic, a Croatian WW II refugee fled to Argentina with his new wife in 1947. Ten years later, Ljeposlav’s mother was finally able to visit and it was requested that she bring three dolls dressed in the Croatian national costume. So began a deliberately indiscriminate collection, which boasts of dolls from Pope John Paul VI to Mao Tse Tung. Wendy could not be happier having her doll included in the collection because it represents symbols of which nations and cultures are proud. Wendy is keen to share her passion and pride and is now preparing to take her own dolls on tour. Wendy and Ash plan to take their inspiring and sustainable creations and the means to make them, to markets and stalls all around Australia. Keep an eye on her Blog at wendyfrankdolls.com to stay tuned to the dolls’ and their makers’ travels